Through the Looking Glass
by amichan2
Summary: Based on the idea from an interview I read with Miyazaki that Chihiro isn't supposed to remember anything from her time in the other world. A boy is discovered unconscious on the bank of a river in the countryside, and wakes up with memories. Chihiro is l
1. Chapter One

_"Many a man claims to have unfailing  
love, but a faithful man who can find?"_

- Proverbs 20:6 

**THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS**

1.

Walking through the dark. Clutching. Don't clutch; Chihiro, it's hard to walk when you clutch. A ray of light. Stained glass windows. Open fields. The wind. A river. Running. Running. Running. Falling. A gasp. The rain. The endless rain.

A train traveling quietly through the endless shallow water. A bittersweet smell---herbs, medicine, water, the rush of water, wheels turning. Coal burning. Something else. Fire. Water. A wind blows. Green eyes. A flash of white. Running. Running too fast. Running from something. Help. Don't let her catch me. Crying. Someone holding me. Protecting me. At last I'm safe. Somewhere warm. Someone warm. Jewels. Gold. Riches. And yet the richest of all were the green eyes...

Flying. Swimming. Floating. A glint of gold. Sen. The train again. The peaceful water. A light at the end. Walking through the water. Walking through the light. Walking through the dark. Walking, walking, walking. Flying. Swimming. Soaring in the sky. Tears. And then... Falling... Falling...

Green eyes again. They must mean something. Someone. Something. Somewhere. A smile. A voice. Telling me something... Falling. Falling. Falling. Don't. No. Please. Not again. Don't come any closer. I beg you. It's a dream. It's all a dream. It has to be a dream. Save me. Please. I don't want to. Help. No. Running. Falling. Blood everywhere. A rush of wind. And then... Something peaceful. Flying gracefully. Soaring. Landing gently. Cheering. Please... A single word. _Kohaku_.

Over and over and over again. _Kohaku_. A dim light somewhere far away. Droplets of water.

_Kohaku. _

She never did understand that dream.

--

They found him at the end of spring, about two months before the summer vacation in the school year, when the sun was beginning to beat down and the when the heat was suddenly overwhelming. It was the first day of summer, the older people said, when everything suddenly became hot and the winds seemed to be dead.

Amnesia, the doctors said. There was no sign of brain damage or anything physical that may have caused it, but he still didn't remember anything. He had vague memories of his life before he was found, but nothing in real detail. A child who was playing by a small river had found him lying unconscious in the rich grass by the water in the countryside just a few miles away from the main town close by. They found him unhurt but comatose, with shoulder-length blue-black hair, wearing a white yukata1 with a nondescript pattern of water waves in the traditional Japanese style on it. Other than that, there was nothing on him. No personal items or identification that could have told the officials who he was.

He had woken up in a hospital, oddly blank and silent for only a few minutes, and then was extremely confused and unresponsive to questions. He then spent the next month recuperating from the shock of waking up without proper memories, all on trust funds set aside for children and teenagers like him. He didn't remember much other than random pieces of memories were from when he was a very small child. Flashes of swimming in a river somewhere. A shoe. A forest. 

Strange, they said, that an eighteen year old would be found by a river without any recent memories. They named him Kenji, for lack of a better name. They had never seen such a case. Strangely, he was only in shock and not much else. Most teenagers or children who wake up without memories would blubber or cry or become hysterical, but not him. He was strangely silent and calm. He must've been a strong young man when he had his memories, the nurses decided. He remained calm, in any case, and his recovery in the quiet hospital was quite speedy and rather uneventful. He shaped a new personality and a new life--although for the life of them, the nurses never did figure out how to get him to stop being so moody and reserved--and got on with life.

They placed him with a nice social worker, who determined that he was able enough to live by himself at this age, and he was enrolled as a senior in a local high school. And then there was the job the social worker had gotten him as a waiter at a popular ramen place near his high school.

"A job?" he had asked, startled and wide-eyed with the revelation. "I can work? You had said earlier that I was too young."

"Yes," the social worker had explained patiently. "You must be educated at school, but you _can _have a part time job to help pay for your expenses--there's a fund for orphans that is paying for nearly half of what you need to live on, but you will need a job, I think, to survive."

They found him an apartment, too. The landlady was a kind old woman who had agreed to rent the room to him for half the rate she usually charged, because he was living on a part time salary. The social worker brought him some money from the orphan's fund each week to help him, and he led a simple but rather frugal lifestyle for the rest of the summer. He didn't mind, though. Simple didn't bother him. Perhaps never had.

He would probably never know.

--

"Chihiro-san!" someone was shaking her gently through her blanket. She clutched at something in her hands tightly and tried to valiantly ignore the loud noise from what seemed like a distance. "Chihiro! You're going to be late, and it's the first day of school!" that someone pulled the heavy brocade curtains open with a loud _swoosh_. Turning over in bed, Chihiro groaned in exasperation and hid under the covers to escape the evil sunlight that was telling her to _wake up already_. "Get up soon! I'm going to fix your breakfast--- hurry! It's six-thirty already!"

Chihiro waited a moment before she groaned and, crawling out form under the blanket, sat up slowly, stretching. Her hand was aching again from clutching too hard--when had she grabbed the hair band from her desk by her bed in the night?

She stopped clenching the hair band, half-heartedly groping around vaguely for her comb, found it, and jerked it through her hair. She hurriedly swept back her brown hair in one practiced motion and tied it with the hair band that she had clutched at all throughout the night. It was a nondescript hair band--maroon, with glitter weaved into it. Chihiro does not remember ever buying it, but she had it anyways. She saw it as her lucky charm and always used it. It was rather sturdy, and lasted her for many years. She never did quite figure out where it had come from, but she kept it close for reasons she could not begin to fathom.

When she had first moved here to the countryside, she had lots of pretty things from the city. Hairclips, dresses, bracelets, and the like. She quickly lost interest in those things, however, and even after she entered high school she was less fashionable than the even girls in her class, although she was from the city. All she ever wore in her hair was this hair band, and even though it was old and worn, she never could throw it away.

She had long since stopped trying to figure it out, and it would do her no good to think about it now. She had school to go to.

"_Chihiro-san!_" 

"I'm coming, mother!" Chihiro pulled on her uniform--a crisp white shirt, green plaited skirt, and socks, barely making sure she didn't have anything on backwards, and hurried out her bedroom's door, grabbing her school bag on the way. She scrubbed her face rigorously by the sink in the bathroom and brushed her teeth thoroughly, mentally panicking at her lateness. Crap crap crap. I'm going to miss the bus. Crap. It's the first day of school for the new semester and I'm already late. Crap oh crap oh crap. She rinsed out her mouth quickly and ran through the corridor and into the kitchen, where she grabbed her boxed lunch.

"Oh good, you're finally here---there's pickled vegetables in your lunch, your favorite today, and don't forget your drink, and oh, Chihiro-san---"

"Good morning, 'Kaa-san!" Chihiro muttered hurriedly, and ran out the kitchen door, across the living room, and out the front door with the bento and two books balanced in one hand while she tugged on her shoes with the other hand.

"Chihiro-san!" her mother called after her, "Aren't you going to eat breakfast?"

Chihiro had already run down the street towards the bus stop, and was too far away to notice that her mother had said anything. Her mother sighed with some degree of exasperation, and went back to cutting up tomatoes for her husband's lunch.

--

"Chi-hi-ro!" Reiko was saying in a vaguely amused tone, waving both hands right in the center of Chihiro's bleary vision. "Stop day dreaming. Class is over already."

"Huh?" Chihiro took her pony tail down and brushed her fingers through her thick hair.

"Chihiro. You have got to stop tying and retying your hair. There's nothing wrong with it. Stop that already! You're doing it again!"

"I was?" Chihiro replied absently.

Rolled eyes. "Yes! You're obsessing! Now come on. Let's go get our lunch at the student store before all the good stuff is gone."

Chihiro followed, hurriedly tying her hair up.

"Honestly..." Reiko muttered dramatically in mock annoyance. "Shame on you. First you very nearly miss the bus to school, and then you sleep through the first day of school after summer vacation. And you don't seem to have your mind here at all!"

"Save the lecture for later, Reiko-chan," Chihiro retorted. "Let's go eat lunch."

"All right, all right..."

Although neither girl saw him, from a distance, a boy watched them intently. He wasn't overlooked for long, though, as halfway through the lunch hour, Reiko suddenly said, "He's watching you again!" 

"Hmm." Chihiro replied absently.

"The strange boy," Reiko continued. "The one with the strange green eyes and dark hair. Isn't he a senior?"

"Hmm." Chihiro made a non-committal noise. "What about him?"

A pause.

"He's watching you," Reiko tried again. 

"How do you know he's not watching _you_?"

"Because he's always looking at you," Reiko said, as if it were obvious. "You should either talk to him or tell him to go away. It's unnerving. And stop playing with your hair. _That's_ unnerving, too."

Chihiro finally looked up from her lunch at Reiko, ignoring the comment about her hair. "It doesn't bother me, as long as I don't look at him," she said nonchalantly.

"He has such strange eyes..." Reiko reflected, finally quiet for a moment, lost in reverie. She quickly snapped out of it. "You should talk to him," she resumed her insistence.

"That's nice," Chihiro yawned while getting up and walking to English class--the foreign language was a pain, and she was probably going to sleep through that class as well. She never seemed to get enough sleep. There was that extremely strange dream that she always seemed to have, but never quite remembered the details of... green eyes... didn't Reiko say something about...

The thought slipped away before she could get a good look at it.

Pity, she thought. It seemed like something rather important. Something she was supposed to remember. Did she forget to do something before leaving the house this morning? She couldn't remember. Did it have something to do with that mysterious summer?

Ever since she woke up in her new house six summers ago, something felt missing. It was strange, everyone asking where they had gone for four weeks, because her family couldn't remember ever disappearing for four weeks. As far as they were concerned, they had driven to their new place, moved all the boxes and furniture in, and promptly dropped dead from exhaustion on the newly moved in beds and fell into deep sleep, only to wake up to friends and family asking odd questions.

They never quite figured out what had happened during those four weeks.

--

As he walked leisurely on the route to the ramen place that he worked at, Kenji reflected on his day at school. Not too bad, really. He didn't want to think about his school work at all, but lunch had been... odd.

Eating his bread from the convenience store at school quietly, Kenji had watched the girl across the courtyard from him carefully.

That girl was rather strange, he reflected. Sure, she was quite the average school girl. She chatted with her friends--all first years, like her--ate, went to classes, and struggled in P.E. Just like everyone else. But for some reason he found his eyes straying to watch her often, as if there was something particularly special about her.

Was there? He couldn't tell. What if she had something to do with his past? The one he didn't remember?

That was silly. She would remember him, if she knew him in the past.

And yet he found himself watching her constantly. Something nagged at the back of his mind when he watched her. Something he was supposed to remember. Or was it someone? But surely, if they had known each other once, she would remember him. 

Wouldn't she?

"Oi! Kenji!" the ramen restaurant owner was calling out to him from two blocks up ahead. "Hurry, boy! The place is bursting with customers. Get in here!"

Kenji shook his head and jogged the rest of the way to work while digging out his uniform apron for work. The moment he got to the bustling restaurant, he dropped his book bag off at the kitchen, tied the apron around his waist, put his hair back in a low ponytail, took out a pen and a pad of ordering forms, and got to work.

He had learned the procedure quickly. Write down orders. Send to kitchen. Grab whatever's on the counter from the kitchen with its tag, and deliver it to the right table. Help clean up a used table. Usher in new customers. Repeat.

It was a sweaty and tired Kenji who walked out of the restaurant four hours later, not bothering to take off the apron. He dragged himself home and braced himself for a night of study.

Kenji had quite a bit of trouble in school. In the month he spent at school before summer break, he found that he was great at literature, writing, and P.E., but not much else. Calculus was a pain, and so was physics, history, and art. He guessed that he wasn't an artist before he lost his memories. He was barely passing those classes, but not for lack of effort. After getting home at nearly eight every night--nine if he worked over time or had cleaning duty at school, which put back his schedule an hour or so--he would drop dead on his bed for an hour, and then get up and do homework and study until odd hours. Sleep didn't usually come until one or two in the morning, but he adjusted well. He'd had to be able to adjust to circumstances well, to have built a new personality entirely from scratch.

After waking up, feeling disgusting, and putting on some clean clothes after taking a quick shower, he got on with his school work as always, but his mind wasn't on his work. What had really happened to him during all those years? The question was always on his mind, but tonight it pressed on him more urgently. At last he left the literature homework undone--he could always do it during history class--and went to bed. 

--

A small child. A girl. Reaching out for something. Be careful. Don't fall. She falls. He dives in after her. Odd sensation. And then...

The lone figure standing alone on the bridge. Don't. Go away. Be careful. You're not supposed to be here. You'll be hurt. Go. Across the river. Now. The lights... Too fast. Too late.

Running. Can't find her. She's safe. She has to be. Please. Let her be safe. Hiding. Hiding. Running. Running. Pretending. A mask. Stealing. Lying. What is going on? Can't control myself...

Please. Make it stop. Let it go away. Make it go away. Please. Falling. Falling. Falling.

And then, she is here. Her sweet words. Her kind face. They hit the ground. More pain. Stop... Make it stop. Stay away from me. It hurts. Something bitter, but it stopped hurting. The dark. Sleep.

Please. Make it stop. The gold. The flying. The water. Rushing into his face. Soaring. A single word. _Sen_.

Over and over again. _Sen_. Please. Don't hurt her. Don't let her get hurt. Must protect her. 

_Sen_.

He never did understand that dream.

**_  
To be continued_.**

1 A _yukata _is a lighter, more casual version of the kimono, is usually shorter, and is worn daily around the house, during festivals, in the streets, mostly the same way you'd wear a t-shirt and jeans out the door, but wouldn't really wear it to the office. Usually worn more in the summer.

**A/N:**

Three years later, we're back to continue with this story. This is the first introductory chapter, and it's been much edited from the original. I hope you enjoyed the story and will come back for more.

Comments? Criticism? I'm not going to lie and say I don't like reviews. So fire away if you'd like. Be a responsible reader, no?

Oh, yeah. Spirited Away is copyrighted to Studio Ghibli and the director Hayao Miyazaki, and other big scary companies. No infringement intended.

See you next chapter.

_Amy Pan  
November 20, 2006  
11:12 PM_


	2. Chapter Two

_"Inside the deep, deep forest, there is surely  
an abandoned heart hidden there now.  
Without the power to find it, people get tired  
and disappear into forever darkness.  
If I were still small I could probably still see it."_  
- from "Fukai Mori," by Do As Infinity

**THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS**

2.  


That dream again. Where will it end? The same images, the same people. That same rush of water. The same bittersweet scent. It's always there in her memory.

Is there a meaning to this reoccurring dream, or was is it sent to torture her? Don't clutch, Chihiro, someone was saying. Ridiculous. She never clutches anything. She is always in control. Isn't she? Ah, but this dream is completely out of her control. She didn't like it at all, but was there anything she could do to stop it?

There it was again. Green eyes. The strong wind. The glint of gold. The pastel colored sky. The tunnel that would not end. The leaves swirling around her, only to reveal a river with no end in sight when the leaves cleared.

The wind and the darkness. The taste of... something... fear? The train passes by her eyes again through the endless water. A sense of incredible déja vu. But of course. She's seen this dream before. Countless times. Someone was trying to tell her something. An event? A place?

A person? 

And at the end it is always the same. The rush of water. Floating. Soaring in the sky. Someone. Something. A feeling. And it always ends with the same thought, too. The same word. _Kohaku_.

Over and over again. _Kohaku_. The endless tunnel and water. 

_Kohaku_.

--

_Kohaku_.

"The worksheet on naming organic compounds will be due next time," someone was saying -- it was a cheerful, female voice of someone perhaps twenty-something year old. "Class dismissed!"

"Chihiro!" someone else -- a voice equally as cheerful and ever younger -- said, poking her. "Chihiro! Wake up! It's lunch time already."

"Hmm?" Chihiro looked up sleepily, and blinked at Reiko's lovely yet looming face before her. "It's what?"

Reiko rolled her eyes oh-so-eloquently. "Lunch time. You slept through Chemistry again. Haven't we been through this already?"

Chihiro rubbed her eyes and yawned, blinking with drooping, sleepy eyes. "I guess I did sleep through Chemistry again," she said wryly halfway through the yawn.

"Well, at least you're a quiet sleeper," Reiko laughed easily. "Come on. There's fried octopus balls at the student store today. We have to go get them quick before they're gone."

But of course, before Chihiro could get in a reply, Reiko was already running out the classroom door towards the student store, her nondescript dark brown long hair trailing prettily behind her in the wind. The wind. It felt good. Chihiro did a double take. She had always hated the wind as a child. What changed that?

Chihiro shook her head. Those were entirely useless thoughts. She needed to stop letting her mind wander so. She pushed her books and papers aside and stood up to follow Reiko, her hands already taking her ponytail apart to retie it. It had come apart when she fell asleep during class. She stopped suddenly, and remembered Reiko's grievances about Chihiro's tying and retying her hair. Smiling lightly, she finished retying it and hurried after Reiko.

It was when they were in the middle of a particularly difficult Chemistry problem while they were eating lunch that Reiko noticed the strange older boy staring at them again. 

"You should just talk to him," Reiko was saying again.

"Who?"

"The boy with the strange, dark hair. He ties it back."

"I have no idea who you're talking about," Chihiro stared intently at her boxed lunch. No picked vegetables today. What a pity.

"Don't pretend you don't know who I'm talking about. You know exactly who. And you know he stares at you all the time. It's abnormal. What if he hurts you?"

"He won't hurt me," Chihiro replied, but was slightly dubious herself.

"Talk to him anyways."

"Why should I talk to him?" Chihiro replied nonchalantly.

"Tell him to stop staring at you, at least," Reiko said, beginning to become very aggravated. 

"You're the only person disturbed by his staring at me," Chihiro countered. "Maybe you should talk to him."

Reiko avoided answering. "Just talk to him."

"No." Chihiro stabbed at the carrot that refused to be picked up. She held up her chopsticks, examined it, and popped it in her mouth. Gross. "I don't feel like it."

"So you're just going to let him stare at you like this?" Reiko raised an eyebrow.

"I guess."

"You know what I think? I think he likes you," Reiko poked Chihiro's ribs. "And I think you might like him, too. Just a little bit."

"He does not. There's no reason he would like me. He's never even talked to me before. And I do not. I've never liked a boy before and you know it," Chihiro stabbed at another piece of carrot.

"Well," Reiko said. "Maybe it's a good time to start."

"I don't want to start."

"Too late."

Chihiro rolled her eyes and continued to eat without another word, but was somehow faintly aware now of the boy watching her from afar.

--

He ate his lunch quietly, watching the girl intently for no particular reason whatsoever. For some reason he felt drawn to her, but he didn't know why he _would _be.

The day by day events in his life were the same. He got up, maybe took a shower if he felt dirty, went to school, watched the girl he was inexplicably drawn to during lunch, worked, did homework, and slept. He had a sneaking feeling that it was weird or abnormal for him to be constantly staring at someone he didn't know, but he couldn't help it either.

His homeroom teacher earlier that morning, though, had suggested something much different from his day to day routine. Apparently, the teacher thought Kenji had the right build for a sports club. Kendo, of all things. Him? Kendo?

He didn't even know what kendo was, and the teacher had to explain it in great length. The teacher rambled on about it... something about it being able to help him into a private college, possibly. The teacher also expected him to show up at the practice court attached to the gym in the morning or after school one day to give it a try, at least.

Maybe it was a good idea. It could possibly distract him from the amnesia he was constantly thinking about. He couldn't help wondering constantly what his life had been before he was discovered. Every other person around him had a family, or at least a memory of one. He knew some classmates of his had single parents, and he knew yet others with none. At least, he thought bitterly, they knew their parents once, or who their parents were. He did not even know if he _had _parents, although he must.

If he decided to show up to try this kendo, he would be late to work. If he were late to work, he would have to work over time. He would probably not get to sleep until four a.m., as a result.

However, he was also desperate for something different in life. He had lived life with his new personality for three months, and he wanted more. Whatever life was about, he was missing the point of it. He had no interest for anything. No passion. No fuel. No fire. He lived life because he can.

And he hated every moment of it.

He was not exactly depressed, but he was not happy either. He was mostly angry. He was angry at whoever caused this. He must have had loved ones, and possibly pleasant memories. Whoever took those memories away took not only memories, but those loved ones as well. He will find out who it was one day, and he will find them.

And they would pay for what they did. He would demand to know why this had to happen to him. And he would demand for them to give back what they took from him.

In a little corner of his mind, however, was the sneaking suspicion that nothing would ever be the same as they were before, whatever they were before, even if he had his memories again.

He ignored that suspicion entirely.

--

"School is over!" Reiko skipped down the hallway, bouncing happily. 

"Reiko!" Chihiro yelled at her quickly skipping away friend. "The locker room is that way! We have to go get our P.E. things first!"

Reiko stopped in her path, blinking several times. "Oh. Right. Yes," she grinned and skipped back and past Chihiro down the corridor to the locker room.

Chihiro grinned and followed after Reiko, keeping up in step with Reiko's quick dash.

"Ne, Chihiro," Reiko said after the girls emerged from the locker room, "you don't have a ride home today, right?"

"I don't. Father is away in the city for an important business convention, and Mother is with him."

"Ah, I see, then you don't mind coming over for dinner, right?"

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble..."

"Of course not," Reiko hugged Chihiro, bubbling over with cheeriness. "And we could go to the mall before dinner time and get something yummy to eat! Like fried noodles bread or something!"

"I'd rather not, actually," Chihiro replied apologetically. "I really have to study -- midterms are coming up soon."

"Oh all right then," Reiko pouted cutely. "We can just go to my house then, right?"

"All right, that sounds good to me." And with that, the girls proceeded to walk down the street to Reiko's family's apartment.

"Look!" Reiko pointed excitedly. "It's that ramen place my sisters were talking about!"

"Hm?" Chihiro followed where Reiko was pointing. "The one with a great pork chop ramen?"

"Yes!" Reiko jumped excitedly. "Let's go in and try it out! _Please_?"

"Hmm I don't know," Chihiro replied dubiously, even though she knew Reiko would convince her in the end. "I'm not a big fan of ramen. And I have to study, remember."

"Oh, you're far too studious for your own good. Please?" Reiko tugged at Chihiro's arm. "Just this once. For me?"

"Hmm all right, I guess." Chihiro sighed and gave in.

--

"So I just hold it like this," Kenji held the shinai experimentally, his voice dubious. He was more than a little uncomfortable in the heavy padding and the mask. "And I try to block hits from my opponent?"

"That's right. You have to remember your stances though, to be able to do that well. We'll get to attacking once you figure out blocking. Watch your stances! Don't let your feet be too far apart or too close together. Stand up straight. By the way, you're not going for the win. You get three minutes, and I stop whatever you two are doing, all right?"

"Yes, sir." Kenji replied, walking into the court. His opponent -- a sophomore -- bowed gravely. He bowed back. His opponent looked to him, and he saw the hesitation in the other's eyes behind the kendo mask. The kid is nervous, he realized. What he was so nervous about, Kenji couldn't begin to imagine. Kenji knew nothing about kendo so there was no reason why his opponent ought to be afraid of him.In a moment though all hesitation was swept away as his opponent lounged at him speedily with the shinai aimed for his side, his head, and his right thigh in rapid succession. He dodged these moves, and kept his eyes on his opponent's shinai to familiarize himself with its movements. Trying to discern his opponent's movements and stance clearly, he attempted to foresee future strikes and to block them as well as he could.

Vaguely he was aware of the coach instructing his opponent to improve his stance. When he felt comfortable enough, Kenji began blocking a movement or two occasionally instead of blocking. Soon he was blocking almost all the time instead of dodging, but his opponent has gotten in quite a few strikes as well. He was beginning to ache now, and saw good reason in the padding he was forced to wear.

Before he knew it, the coach had called time. Looked at Kenji, consideringly, the coach instructed another senior to teach Kenji the proper striking stance and the basic strike. What was on the coach's mind, Kenji could not begin to guess. The rest of kendo practice passed rather quickly, and soon, he was in the locker rooms changing into his work uniform and running to work, his heart feeling considerably lighter than he could ever remember.

It felt good to be moving again, he thought, then realized that there was no reason for him to include "again" in that thought. What was that?

--

"What would you like to have today?" a distinctly young teenage voice said. It sounded vaguely familiar. Chihiro looked up from her text book into green-blue eyes.

"Ara?" Reiko stared. "Aa! You are from our high school."

The boy looked back indifferently, and then replied, "Yes. I suppose I am," but his eyes were on Chihiro.

Pretending to think hard, Reiko stared at him for a moment. "Kenji-san, isn't it?" She said politely at last, casting a significant look at Chihiro. Chihiro ignored her. Kenji inclined his head slightly in confirmation of his first name.

A pause. "Well," Reiko continued cheerfully, "please, I would like to have pork chop ramen please?"

"Tea or water?" Kenji inquired.

"Tea."

"And you?" Kenji turned to Chihiro.

Chihiro studied the menu carefully. The thought of pork made her want to throw up. She had no idea why, but there it was. Beef didn't sound too enticing either, and she decided at last on something lighter flavored. "Seafood ramen, please. And tea," Chihiro look up at him and answered.

Kenji studied her for a moment. After a long moment, finally replied, "Will do," and walked away towards the kitchen.

Reiko looked at his retreating figure for a moment, and turned to Chihiro. "He likes you."

"Of course," Chihiro replied soothingly.

"I'm serious," Reiko raised an eyebrow. "I really think so."

"For goodness sake, will you stop obsessing? You know I'm not the type to squeal over guys endlessly."

"I still think he likes you."

Chihiro rolled her eyes. Fortunately, Kenji had returned with a pot of tea and two teacups. "Thank you," she told him politely while casting a glare sideways at Reiko. Kenji nodded at her and turned to leave. Reiko ignored the glare. Soon, Kenji returned with both of their orders, and took their money silently before slipping away. 

"Aa!" Reiko dug into her ramen excitedly. "It's as good as my sisters said it would be!"

Chihiro smiled, and ate her own ramen quietly. It was really quite good, although the smell of pork made her feel slightly ill. Her mother had not bought pork for a long time. In fact, when was the last time they had pork at home? She could not remember. She felt increasingly nauseated now. 

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come with Reiko, she thought. There was definitely something in the smell of the --

The next thing she knew, the ground was approaching at an alarming rate. And everything was black.

"Hurry! Kenji! A customer!" a woman was saying. "A high school student -- collapsed! Just like that! I've called the hospital, but will you --?"

"I got it, boss," Kenji rushed over to a crowd, squeezing between people, muttering "excuse me" here and there until he got to the collapsed customer. It was that girl, he realized in horror. 

She wasn't responding to her friend's calls, or to his shaking her shoulders constantly. 

He thought quickly for a moment, and saw a glass of water on the counter that someone had set out for him to take to a customer.

She would want water if she wakes up, he thought. He could even possibly splash her face with it to wake her up. The water glass zoomed towards his hand as if it knew what he wanted.

He stared at the glass in his hand and very nearly dropped it. He looked around, bewildered. In all the mayhem over a collapsed customer, no one saw what had just happened.

What was going on?

**_To be continued._**

A/N:

This is the second chapter of the rewrite. Chapter three is forthcoming. I hope you all enjoy this story and continue to support me! Thanks for everyone's wonderful reviews. Any comments/criticisms are welcome.

_Amy Pan  
November 27th, 2006  
8:06 PM_


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